Scott Brown's election to Senate last week has had a dramatic impact on the Hill's landscaping.

The election of Scott Brown and subsequent harpooning of an imminent overhaul to the health care system has tempered enthusiasm that progressives will succeed in implementing green energy reform through “cap-and-trade”. Alternatively, environmentalists will shift gear to advance legislation that will create jobs in the green global markets.

Cap-and-trade is a system whereby corporations would be capped in the amount of potentially harmful carbon emissions they can produce. Companies that are “over budget” in their emissions could purchase larger emission quantities from corporations that are under budget. Proponents of cap-and-trade claim that reform would limit damage that manufacturers could impart on the environment. Detractors counter that cap and trade is merely a stopgap measure that would merely drive up costs without having any significant effect at reducing emissions.

Model comparison of simple cap v. cap-and-trade.

White House officials insist that President Obama remains committed to climate reform. At a conference last week, deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Gary Guzy said “there continues to be very strong support among a range of legislators for comprehensive climate legislation that includes cap and trade.” Guzy’s comments stand in the face of legislation gridlock resulting from nearly unanimous partisan voting.

Fractures in the Senate have only deepened since the Massachusetts special election cost the Democrats from holding 60 seats and created a stronger need for compromise. Senator John Kerry remains resolute that broad climate reform is a certainty even if legislation may take longer than progressives have hoped. As Kerry stated “I can’t tell you whether it will happen this year or not. But it’s going to happen. It is inevitable that the United States will deal with climate and energy. The sooner you do it, the cheaper it is.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) the lone advocate from the right who favored cap-and-trade has abandoned hope for climate reform legislation for the foreseeable future.

The visible horizon does not hold images of bold climate legislation. Rather, Congress will turn its focus toward addressing unemployment which is as high as 14% in some states. According to Graham, right now, the public’s focus on the environment is legislation that may create jobs, whether in the form of offshore drilling or building wind turbines.

A natural gas plant.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle say that the new technology being developed to capture the carbon emissions and bury them is a better tactic to employ than the use of natural gas. There is a lot of money that is riding on the coal industry, money that aids many politicians to get elected. It’s because of this that there is a large mixture of science, business, politics, and environment that is making the energy bills going through the House and Senate worth debating.

People are dismayed that an issue that should be so simple is causing such apathy in Congress. The current House bill that was passed in June provided some support to natural gas, but majority power landed in coal once again. They were provided tens of billions of dollars in pollution credits. Because of this, the savings will be passed on to the consumer. Environmentalists are frustrated about this because all of these billions of dollars in pollution credits are not doing a single thing to ensure that the environment is being protected from this overload in greenhouse gases.

A lot of people in the coal industry are arguing that the technology of capturing and burying the emissions in the ground is a great way to ensure that the emissions aren’t getting into the air. The natural gas people are arguing that natural gas is a sure way to reduce greenhouse gases unlike an “untested technology.” Because of this, the battle is continuing over which is the better method of providing both the necessary energy in the United States, but also ensuring that the environment doesn’t get destroyed more because of all these greenhouse gases.

In the end, officials are saying that, although it may be nice to have benefits to coal and natural gas, but also a decrease in greenhouse gases, there is little way to benefit both parties. There will have to be a choice.